Attributed to Nicola VAN HOUBRAKEN (Messina, 1668 - Livorno, 1733) Vanity or Still Life with Sheep's Skull, Doves, Snake, Weasel and Flowers Oil on canvas, framed 98 x 133.5 cm (restorations) Provenance: Collection of Leopold HOOGVELST (1893-1985), former chairman of the Board of Directors of the Metallurgic, Electrical and Industrial Trust in Brussels Nicola van Houbraken was born in Messina in Sicily to a family of Flemish painters. Around 1674, they moved to Livorno in Tuscany, where he is known to have worked mainly on still lifes. The large painting we are presenting, whose elements are executed with exceptional naturalism, conceals a profound meaning linked to life and death. This still life is in fact a Vanitas, a genre much represented in the 17th century, symbolizing the fragility of existence and the passage of time. The skull, the central element and symbol of death par excellence, accompanied by poppies, symbols of oblivion and eternal sleep, and the weasel and the snake, the traditional image of evil and sin, threaten two doves crouching candidly in a basket. The dark tones of the painting accentuate the brutality of the message and the idea of a transitory and ephemeral existence.